There are fixtures for attaching such devices (called “portable” devices, mobile telephones or GPS devices) to the windshield or to the instrument panel by suction-cup systems or by hooking to the air vents or by hooking to the rear-view mirror.
Other supports have been proposed for affixing these portable devices to the inside rear-view mirror of a motor vehicle. These supports have several drawbacks.
A large proportion of these supports use a suction cup attached to the windshield or to the instrument panel. In the former case, they have the drawback of getting unstuck whenever there is a change of humidity or temperature in the vehicle.
The method of hooking these devices to the air vents has the drawback of not being easy to standardize.
The best known of these supports using suction cups or air vents have trade names such as Richter®, HR®, 30 Hama®, Tomtom®, Garmin® (registered trademarks).
There is a British patent, No. GB 2501330 “Hands-free cradle for smart phone, PDA, satellite navigation device”, which also uses a suction cup.
There also exists an affixing support promoted by the commercial distribution firm (registered mark) PEARL, consisting of two parts, one part equipped with means for attachment to the rear-view mirror by means of a jaw fixed to the side of the rear-view mirror, adjusted along the width of the rear-view mirror while the other part is at the extremity of a “shower hose” that is relatively hard but deformable in order to be crimped at its end to a mobile device or to a GPS device. The drawback of this device, which has parallel jaws, is that the rear-view mirror can have non-parallel lower and upper edges, or domed edges, so much so that the jaws do not clamp in a stable way. Another drawback is that these jaws can clamp only on to the left-hand or right-hand side of the rear-view mirror and not in its middle so much so that the “shower hose” has to be oriented in order to act as a counterweight and any action applied manually to the mobile unit or to the GPS etc. causes imbalance to the rear-view mirror through the gripping of the jaws on the side. The mobile phone or the GPS device fixed to the extremity of the “shower hose” has another drawback of being anchored relatively solidly so much so that in the event of impact, this “shower hose” resists the impact and can cause injury.